Adult’s Books:
Advent : Festive German Bakes to Celebrate the Coming of Christmas
by Anja Dunk.
£25 hardback, Quadrille books.
Celebrate the magical countdown to Christmas with this beautiful book featuring the very best German festive bakes! From lightly spiced Lebkuchen and frosted cinnamon stars to a gingerbread house dripping with sugar icicles, fill your kitchen with the warm scents of nutmeg and cinnamon and get your bake on in time to shower friends & relations with festive treats!
Lavishly-produced, with plenty of photos and the author’s own charming linocut prints, this is a wonderful seasonal gift!

The Fell by Sarah Moss.
Picador £14.99
This taut, immersive and sharply-observed novel sums up the spirit of 2020 – it is a ‘Pandemic Novel’, which perfectly captures the curtain-twitching paranoia of those lockdown days!
The action takes place over a 24-hour period during the November lockdown and is told from 4 perspectives: Kate, a cash-strapped single mother, and keen fell-walker, her teenage son Matt, her wealthy widowed neighbour Alice (shielding while recovering from cancer) and Rob, a mountain rescue volunteer.
Kate and Matt are in the middle of a two-week quarantine. Kate is feeling stifled and claustrophobic after another day at home, and, as dusk begins to fall, decides to head up onto the moors for a quick blast of fresh air - crucially, breaking her own rules, and failing to tell Matt where she is going.
As dusk turns to night, with no sign of his mum, Matt begins to fret. Alice, Kate’s neighbour, saw her leave, and weighs up whether she should alert the authorities. Meanwhile, up on the fell, Kate has taken a tumble....What began as a furtive walk has turned into a mountain rescue operation…
Sarah Moss is the MASTER of the interior monologue, and the ‘stream of consciousness’ style of each narrator’s thoughts, as they swerve between the mundane (with many deft touches of humour) to the socio-political, perfectly evokes the isolation, claustrophobia, fear and social pressures which characterised the pandemic zeitgeist.
A neat, short novel with hidden depths which packs a real punch!

A Spotter’s Guide to Countryside Mysteries: From Piddocks and Lynchets to Witch’s Broom by John Wright.
£16.99 hardback, Profile Books
A new book by John Wright in November? Christmas presents, sorted!
Master-forager, mycophile and passionate natural historian John Wright is the author of several River Cottage handbooks, as well as the marvellous ‘Forager’s Calendar’ and ‘Natural History of the Hedgerow’. He has appeared on Channel 4’s River Cottage programme and runs foraging workshops in rural Dorset.
His new book ‘A Spotter’s Guide to Countryside Mysteries’ is like a grown-up ‘I-Spy’ for the countryside - demystifying some of the weird and wonderful folklore and unusual phenomena you might come across in the great outdoors. From recognising manmade features such as Dew ponds and Hollow Ways, to identifying strange natural phenomena such as a Witch’s Broom or Robin’s pincushion, throwing in their histories and folklore, with neat tips on how and where they might be found, this book is a treasure-trove of information for both the keen rambler and the armchair enthusiast alike!

Children’s Books:
Squirrel’s Snowman by Julia Donaldson
£6.99 board book, Pan Macmillan
ADORABLE winter fun in this brand-new addition to Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s charming ‘Tales from Acorn Wood’ series. ‘Squirrel wakes one morning, she pulls the curtains wide - what is all that white stuff, coming down outside?’ It’s snowing in Acorn Wood, and Squirrel wants to build a snowman. Will she and her friends find everything they need to build it? With a pitch-perfect rhyming story, and flaps to lift on every page, the cute woodland creatures are beautifully brought to life by Axel’s Scheffler’s enchanting illustrations. A perfect Christmas treat for 1-3 year olds!

Every year, The Poetry Society commissions a different poet to create the poem that will decorate the base of the Trafalgar Square Christmas tree. In 2020, it was Julia Donaldson’s turn, and now the poem she wrote in honour of that tree has been turned into a gorgeous picture book!
With beguiling illustrations by Victoria Sandoy, the journey of the tallest tree from its Norwegian forest to Trafalgar Square is conveyed, in beautiful verse, capturing the magic of Christmas and the poignancy of time passing.
Signed copies of both these books, as well as Julia’s other new book ‘Rock-a-Bye-Rumpus’
(a collection of action poems for the very young) will be available at the Steyning Bookshop, and if you’re quick you may be able to book a place at Julia’s exclusive signing on Saturday 6th November, in the afternoon.

Arthur; The Always King by Kevin Crossley-Holland, illustrated by Chris Riddell
£20 hardback, Walker Books
Master story-teller Kevin Crossley-Holland has penned this readable, thrilling re-telling of the legend of King Arthur, lavishly illustrated by the wonderful Chris Riddell. A visual treat, this is a perfect introduction to the Arthurian legends for readers of 7 upwards.